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March 26, 2012

I recently made a short but pleasant trip to Lucknow, a north Indian city with a diverse and varied history of song, dance and political intrigue. Lucknow is also famous for its fine cuisine which developed to please the discerning palates of its luxury loving Nawabs. The rulers, appointed by the Mughal kings of Delhi and Agra were of Iranian origin and the royal chefs developed a class of food that is both rich as well as delicately balanced for high flavor. I wish to share some of the photos I took around the city with our readers. Rather than go into the complicated historical details of the place, I will instead share an essay by Sachin Kalbag about Lucknow's famous foods. The article was published in Mail Today, when the newspaper had been newly launched and its website was not quite user-friendly. It is only accessible to me in the PDF format, I can't therefore provide a link. I am reproducing it in its entirety with the permission of the author. Kalbag refers to some of Lucknow's famous landmarks which also appear in my photo montage.

The pictures here are of buildings commissioned by the Shi'a rulers of Lucknow, dating from the 18th century, designed by Iranian engineers and constructed by Indian laborers, masons and craftsmen. Clearly representing the Muslim architectural style, the beautiful edifices were heavily influenced by the artistic sensibilities of the Indian workers as well as existing local architecture of pre-Islamic era. In fact during that period, given the high traffic of Persian notables to the Mughal courts, the exchange of architectural design and aesthetics most probably flowed in both directions - from Iran to India and back. This notion is supported by the comment by an Iranian friend who saw the Lucknow photos on my Facebook. She doesn't claim any expertise in the area but noted the following from her observations.

These are fascinating, Ruchira! Except for the corridor of the Bhool Bhulaiya and some general impressions of that kind of blending of interior/exterior space like the doggie in the window picture, it's striking how different they are from architecture in Iran of that period, which I suppose says much for the influence of the Indian craftsmen and how the engineers must have been impressed by what they encountered in India. If anything, some of it reminds me more of Qajar period in Iran, slightly later. Perhaps they brought back some ideas from India?

(Click on the Wiki links for the history of the monuments featured below and on the images for enlargement)

Bada Imambada: The larger of the two famous Imambadas (The monument of the Imam) of Lucknow. Built in the mid 18th century by the Shia ruler of Lucknow as a tribute to Imam Hassan, the monument was designed by Iranian engineers and constructed by Indian laborers.

The main entrance to the Bada (large) Imambada

The view from inside the intricate structure around the deep well

The Bauli - the several stories deep well in the compound

The Tajia Hall

The beautifully carved ceiling of the Tajia Hall. The holy banners in the first alcove on the right

A passage within the Bhool Bhulaiya, the maze

A view of the Rumi Darwaza (The Roman Gate) outside

A building across the street with a fish motif (the elephant is live)

Chhota Imambada:The beautiful, delicately designed Chhota Imambara, a monument dedicated to Imam Hussain. It was built in the late 18th century by the ruling Shia dynasty of Lucknow. As with the its larger counterpart, this edifice too was designed by Iranian architects and built by local Indian laborers and masons.

A charming pair at the entrance. The metal female figure is a lightning conductor and the golden fish is the equivalent of a wind sock.

The Chhota Imambara

A jacuzzi bath for the women of the royal family on the premises.

The mausoleum of theNawab's daughter.

The lace like design and calligraphy on the front wall of the Imambada.

A scenic shot within the complex. Lucknow has a rich and varied assortment of botanical life.

The mosque at the Chhota Imambara.

The Residency at Lucknow (a major site of the Sepoy Mutiny, India's first war of independence against British occupation)

A memorial before the dining hall to commemorate British soldiers

Bullet holes on the walls of the Residency.

A memorial to Indian soldiers who sided with the British.

The boundary wall of a building in the compound

The burnt out quarters where Sir Henry Lawrence, the commander of the British forces died.

The remnants of the church of the Residency and the surrounding cemetery.

A British gun.

The mosque of the Residency. It is still in use.

The last Nawab of Oudh (Lucknow was its capital), Wajid Ali Shah. The hapless, pleasure loving, apathetic ruler was removed from power and exiled in Calcutta by the British just a year before the Mutiny, in preparation for the take over of Lucknow and the kingdom of Oudh.

March 21, 2012

Does the latest music album sound more than perfect to your ears, as it dribbles or blasts out of the earbuds of your music player? Not a note out of place, no little rough edges that would make you squirm?

There's a reason for that in this world of hyperdigitization. Auto-tuning is the trick. Steve Guttenberg of Cnet.com muses on whether technology is robbing music of its soul.

Today, for example, Auto-Tuned vocals are so ubiquitous that my friend, mastering engineer Dave McNair, exclaimed, "The only way to know for sure a vocal hasn't been Auto-Tuned, is an out of tune vocal." So once a new technology is available, the engineers can't resist using it. This isn't so much about analog versus digital recording formats. No, it's the way recordings are made. Too many are assembled out of bits and pieces of sound to create technically perfect, but soulless music. It's not that great music can't be made with computers, but it's sure less likely to get my mojo workin'.

I love the ability of some of the new software to manipulate vocals, having toyed with Audacity myself. I record myself singing, wince over how it sounds, raise the pitch by one step or two, sit back and listen to myself singing as I would have sounded when I was in my twenties, with all the technique honed by the added years, yet more of the sweetness that is lost to age and countless infections thickening the vocal cords.

But using Auto-tune to change that which is unmusical into a tune, while not new, has been taken to new heights, in this 'music video' consisting of auto-tuned utterances of well-known scientists.

When a performance has been digitally pieced together off several imperfect takes,or slight off-pitches corrected, what does it do to the experience of the listener? We often listen without realizing the amount of correction and can only sigh at our inability to replicate the perfect renditions, a feeling of audio envy, much like the photoshopped perfect models on magazine covers who trigger look envy.

Even live performances aren't immune to this kind of doctoring, with stars resorting to lip-syncing to their own recorded vocals, just because of the physical impossibility of dancing vigorously while belting out high notes.

I came across this video of a Kathak dancer who actually sings and dances, admittedly one of the slower types of dances. No lip-syncing here, you can hear her breath grow slightly heavier after fancy footwork in places. So what if it isn't perfect, the genuineness of the experience more than makes up for the occasional off-pitch note.

That's the reason why even crackling, terrible old recordings of long lost gurus are capable of moving me to tears. even with the imperfections, speeded up audio, flubbed lyrics or more. The quest for digitized perfection leaves an older generation of listeners in the cold, while the newer generations get used to a degree of improbable perfection that will never be matched by the pleasures of a live performance.

March 19, 2012

I have no words to address the actions of Sergeant Bales who did the shooting of civilians in Afghanistan, nor the horrors experienced by the dead and wounded, nor the bereavement of the families. I do have words, however, for the officers who have direct authority and control over the enlisted men and the non-commissioned officers in their charge.

Officers Are Always In Charge

Officers are responsible for the training and direct supervision of their soldiers. In turn, their superiors have the same responsibility, but of greater moment. They are supposed to set the example, the tone, and the limits of behavior for all their people.

An officer is supposed to know his or her men and, with the NCOs, watch them, direct them, lead them, and discipline them. It is the duty of the officers to curtail and restrain the violent impulses of their soldiers when the shooting and killing is over in combat.

A good officer will know when a soldier is beyond his discipline and contol, and then remove him from a situation where the soldier will harm himself or others. Senior officers can be oblivious to signs of emotional and personality dysfunction in their units.

In almost all tragedies, like the murders in Afghanistan, an after-event analysis shows there were signs the size of billboards that indicated something horrible and devastating was waiting to happen. In the case of the My Lai massacre, the officers themselves were in a state of decomposition, and there was no one looking out for their wellbeing and ability to lead.

A combat officer has only two priorities, in the following order: 1. accomplish the mission, and 2. take care of his soldiers. If the officer didn't see it coming, then the officer has to pay as well - right up the line. A failure of this magnatude is rarely without warning signs announcing the coming.

March 18, 2012

Dharun Ravi, 20, formerly of Rutgers University, NJ, was convicted on all 15 counts brought against him: invasion of privacy, bias intimidation,lying to investigators, trying to influence a witness and tampering with evidence. From the NYTimes article:

"The case was a rare one in which almost none of the facts were in dispute. Mr. Ravi’s lawyers agreed that he had set up a webcam on his computer, and had then gone into a friend’s room and viewed Mr. Clementi kissing a man he met a few weeks earlier on a Web site for gay men. He sent Twitter and text messages urging others to watch when Mr. Clementi invited the man again two nights later, then deleted messages after Mr. Clementi killed himself."

"Mr. Ravi, 20, wearing a dark suit over his slight frame, sat expressionless as the jury forewoman read the verdict on the first count, of invasion of privacy. But he seemed surprised when she pronounced him guilty on the next charge, of bias intimidation. His eyes popped and he quickly turned his head from the jury."

...

"Mr. Ravi had rejected plea deals, because prosecutors would have required him to admit to bias intimidation. His lawyers said he simply did not believe he had committed a hate crime. They argued that he was “a kid” with little experience of homosexuality who had stumbled into a situation that scared him."

...

"Mr. Kaplan, the county prosecutor, rejected suggestions that Mr. Ravi would not have been on trial if Mr. Clementi had not killed himself. Even if he had not, he said, “under these facts, under this evidence, we would prosecute this case.”

I remember thinking "What a horrific case! What kind of values did the kid who spied grow up with?" when I first read about the suicide of Tyler Clementi a couple of years ago. Then, as I read this article in the New Yorker, I felt more ambivalent about the charges. Is this a hate crime?

What must have gone through Clementi's mind over the whole incident, that prompted him to commit suicide? He appears to have been at a most vulnerable stage, the start of 'coming out' to the world, having informed his parents just shortly before joining college, and starting to explore his sexuality. Was he punishing only Dharun for harassing him, or trying to punish his mother, whose initial rejection he sensed. From the New Yorker article by Iain Parker:

"When he described that experience to Cruz, Clementi reported that his father was “very accepting” of his news, but added, “Its a good thing dad is ok w/it or I would be in serious trouble / mom has basically completely rejected me.” He later added that she had been “very dismissive.”

Jane Clementi told me recently that Tyler announced his sexuality to her in a private, late-night conversation, which “snowballed” to cover his perceived shortage of friends and the uncertainty he had about his faith. At the end of their talk, she recalled, “he cried, I cried, we hugged.” They said that they loved each other. But, Jane Clementi said, “I must admit, other than being surprised, I felt betrayed.”

And, finally, after the whole sordid saga unravels, in digital footprints and reconstruction of the sequence of events leading to the discovery of Tyler Clementi's body in the Hudson, a sad footnote from his mother.

"On the night Jane Clementi learned that Tyler was gay, she said, “I told him not to hurt himself.” Not long before, a girl from his school had committed suicide. “We had talked about it briefly that summer, and for some reason that thought came to mind. And all I said was ‘Don’t hurt yourself,’ and he looked me right in the eye and he laughed, and said, ‘I would never do anything like that.’ ”

So yes, Dharun Ravi was a jerk. He was definitely guilty of the charges of invasion of privacy, lying to investigators, trying to influence a witness and tampering with evidence. But as to the determination of 'bias intimidation', under the Hate Crimes statute, the situation is more murky. There is evidence of distaste and disgust, but not of hate, in my opinion.

"a. Bias Intimidation. A person is guilty of the crime of bias intimidation if he commits, attempts to commit, conspires with another to commit, or threatens the immediate commission of an offense specified in chapters 11 through 18 of Title 2C of the New Jersey Statutes; N.J.S.2C:33-4; N.J.S.2C:39-3; N.J.S.2C:39-4 or N.J.S.2C:39-5, (1) with a purpose to intimidate an individual or group of individuals because of race, color, religion, gender, handicap, sexual orientation, or ethnicity; or (2) knowing that the conduct constituting the offense would cause an individual or group of individuals to be intimidated because of race, color, religion, gender,handicap, sexual orientation, or ethnicity..."

So, yes. Dharun Ravi's actions were a crime, even if he thought he was just 'joking'. Justice has been served by the verdict. The laws are very clear on that. All that remains to happen is the sentencing, set for May 21.

Would this have been prosecuted as a hate crime if Clementi had lived? It is hard to know, even though the prosecutor avers that they would have done so with equal zeal.

March 16, 2012

Michael Sandel has written a long, thoughtful, but frustrating article that raises questions about the intrusion of markets and market values into new domains. He begins with a long list of problematic goods and services that can now be bought and sold, then explains why we might worry about such things being sell-able. He has some things to say about deregulation and how the market has given free rein to greed. He worries too about inequality and its impact upon consumption, so that the more we do with markets the more inequality "matters."

The meat of his argument, however, is about "corruption." By corruption he means not bribery or nepotism, but rather the more "religious" cluster of debasement/pollution/impurity:

Putting a price on the good things in life can corrupt them. That’s because markets don’t only allocate goods; they express and promote certain attitudes toward the goods being exchanged. Paying kids to read books might get them to read more, but might also teach them to regard reading as a chore rather than a source of intrinsic satisfaction. Hiring foreign mercenaries to fight our wars might spare the lives of our citizens, but might also corrupt the meaning of citizenship.

Economists often assume that markets are inert, that they do not affect the goods being exchanged. But this is untrue. Markets leave their mark. Sometimes, market values crowd out nonmarket values worth caring about.

[…]

We don’t allow children to be bought and sold, no matter how difficult the process of adoption can be or how willing impatient prospective parents might be. Even if the prospective buyers would treat the child responsibly, we worry that a market in children would express and promote the wrong way of valuing them. Children are properly regarded not as consumer goods but as beings worthy of love and care. Or consider the rights and obligations of citizenship. If you are called to jury duty, you can’t hire a substitute to take your place. Nor do we allow citizens to sell their votes, even though others might be eager to buy them. Why not? Because we believe that civic duties are not private property but public responsibilities. To outsource them is to demean them, to value them in the wrong way.

This seems fair - not that many people believe the market should control everything, and I don't think anyone believes children should be sold to the highest bidder. However, Sandel's arguments, and especially his examples of inappropriate goods, are not persuasive (to me at any rate).

March 12, 2012

Long piece at Salon about Jonathan Franzen, the internet, and sincerity, in the context of some recent controversy regarding things he's said about Twitter. This bit is unsettling:

But it’s the discussion of a last conversation with his mom that resolved the Franzen paradox for me. As he told his mother secrets about himself on her deathbed, and tried to explain who he was and why he’d be just fine without her, his mother ultimately nodded and said “Well, you’re an eccentric.” And in those four words, in that summation, Franzen heard “the implicit instruction not to worry so much about what she, or anybody else, might think of me. To be myself, as she, in her dying, was being herself.”

March 09, 2012

Move over, BPA, make room for the new kid on the block: 4- MI ( the 'cute' name for 4-methylimidazole), a byproduct of the process used to create one of the coloring agents used in what is obliquely termed 'caramel color' on the ingredients list of many processed foods, most notably sodas like Coca Cola and Pepsi.

The Center for Science in Public Interest had submitted a docket to the FDA, requesting that the caramel colorings with 4-MI be banned, but can claim success of a different sort from what it had hoped. Because of regulations in the state of California, where Coke and Pepsi would have had to label their drinks with warnings similar to "This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm."

If it causes cancer in California, surely, it must cause cancer elsewhere. Ah, the power of truth in advertisement, and the things manufacturers will do in order to not have to issue disclaimers that their product contains substances that are considered carcinogens, even it is only in California. Or is the fear that they could be sued in California by any private citizen or group over the 4-MI in their formulation? This article sheds more light on their concerns.

"Our member companies will still use caramel coloring in certain products, as always. The companies that make caramel coloring for our members' soft drinks are producing it to meet California's new standard,” the beverage association said in a separate statement.

“Consumers will notice no difference in our products and have no reason at all for any health concerns.”

The question is still up in the air as to whether the results of lab tests that show that 4-MI is indeed carcinogenic in lab rats, at high concentrations that far exceed the normal levels that even the most avid drinker of sodas would be exposed to, can be used to argue that 4-MI in caramel color is indeed responsible for a variety of cancers in the population ingesting it. My guess is that at best, it would be one of a gazillion contributing factors towards any cancers that did develop.

March 05, 2012

Ellie Russo called me at 4 AM. Peter, her husband, just got a call from his brother, Rob. His father's condition took a sudden change for the worse. Tony Russo was near death, and was not expected to live more than half the day. Ellie asked if I would drive Peter to be with his father at the hospice center.

Peter and Ellie had returned from his father's bedside, only 90 minutes earlier, and barely got one hour of sleep. It's a two and a half hour drive to Glastonbury, CT, and there was no possibility either of them could drive and be safe. In 35 minutes I was at their house. Peter answered the door, hugged me, and said, “Thank you.” He went straight to my car and got in.

Ellie grabbed my arm as I was turning to follow her husband. “Listen,” she said. “Drive safely. No speeding. Peter's father is the one who is supposed to die. Not you and not Peter.” I patted her hand that held my arm and told her I would deliver both of us, safely, to his father's bedside. I gave her a hug, and left.

I thought Peter would sleep in the car. Not a chance. He was wide awake. I stopped at a diner, and picked up coffee and sandwiches. Ellie's admonition stayed with me the entire trip. I was never so conscious of posted speed limits, and staying alert. I was trying hard to ignore how much time had elapsed since Peter got the call from his brother. He didn't want to call ahead to check on his father. Life and death were out of his control. He would find out what happened when he got there.

We talked, not about Peter's father, but about my father. He died more than a year earlier. Peter kept me company, a few times, on the drive from Poughkeepsie to my Dad's nursing home in Catskill, NY. Peter and my father got to know each other in the last two years of his life. They enjoyed the company of each other, and their conversations.

Peter talked a lot about my Dad's wake, the Catholic funeral Mass, the eulogy I gave him, and the grave-side ceremony. Peter was raised a Catholic, but, for the past 15 years, he has been a Wiccan and active with his small circle. His father, though, would have a proper Catholic service. Tony, a Korean War veteran, would be buried in a military cemetery in Saratoga, NY, not with Peter's deceased mother and deceased older sister in a family plot in Fall River, MA.